with great difficulty, she obtained passports which permitted her to reach Dunkirk, and thence to gain the Spanish Netherlands.[1]
She resided some time at Liege, studying to maintain, and to rivet more closely between Lorraine, Austria, and Spain, an alliance which was the last resource of the Importants and the only foundation of her own credit. But Mazarin had resumed
- ↑ Archives of foreign affairs, vol. cix., Gaudin to Servien, May 20, 1645: "Advices from England say that Madame de Chevreuse is still at the Isle of Wight, and that the Parliament will neither give her vessel nor passport to go to Dunkirk, etc." Bibliothèque Mazarine. French Letters of Mazarin, folio 415, July 22, 1645: "One may judge," says Mazarin, "whether we have a great hatred towards Madame de Chevreuse, since, when she was in the power of the English Parliamentarians, they offered to surrender her into our hands, which we did not care for."
where I purposed, on arriving, to send for the passports which I should need to go to Dover and thence to embark for Dunkirk, it was captured by two captains of the ships of war which are under the authority of the Parliament, and brought to this Isle of Wight, of which I have learned with much joy that you are governor, assuring myself from your nobleness and your courtesy that you will not refuse the entreaty which I make you that you will demand of the gentlemen of the Parliament a passport to go hence to Dover and thence to embark for Dunkirk, where the unhappy state of my affairs urges me to repair without delay. I hope the favor from the justice of the gentlemen of the Parliament that they will have the goodness not to detain me, as the confidence which I have in their generosity, and the resolution which I have taken of never rendering myself unworthy of receiving its benefits, may justly cause me to hope for the boon which I shall impatiently expect on the return of the bearer, whom I send expressly for this purpose to London with the servant of your lieutenant in this island, from whom you will receive a more particular account of the accidents of my voyage. I abridge them as much as possible, so as not to weary you by too long a letter; and it suffices to show you my need of your aid in my present position in order promptly to receive the passport which I ask of the gentlemen of the Parliament, and to entreat you to believe that I shall never be fully satisfied until I shall have expressed to you by my services that you have obliged a person who will be through her whole life, monsieur, your very humble and very affectionate servant, Marie de Rohan, Duchess de Chevreuse."
